My Wife | Mosaic On

Sometimes, I worry about the edges of the mosaic. There are pieces missing, places where the dark backing shows through. These are the stories she has chosen not to tell, the small griefs she keeps private, the dreams she set aside long ago. I have learned not to see these gaps as flaws, but as mysteries. They are the negative space that gives the image its shape. They are the silent acknowledgment that no one, not even a husband who has shared her bed for two decades, can ever fully possess another person’s soul. And that is as it should be. A mosaic without gaps is just a wall. It is the spaces between that invite the light.

To love her, I have realized, is not to memorize a static image. It is to become a devoted curator of her mosaic. It is to step back and admire the overall composition—the strong, intelligent, kind, fierce, vulnerable woman she is. And then it is to step close, to run my fingers over the individual pieces, to feel the smooth and the rough, the warm and the cold. It is to notice a new piece that has just been added—perhaps a tiny shard of silver from the first day she held her new grandson, or a fleck of forest green from the hiking trail where she finally conquered her fear of heights. mosaic on my wife

Tonight, I watch her from the doorway as she folds laundry. The lamp throws a soft halo around her. In this light, I see the whole collection: the young lover, the anxious mother, the grieving daughter, the weary worker, the playful friend. They are all there, shimmering just beneath the surface of her skin. She looks up and catches my gaze. “What?” she asks, a small, familiar smile playing on her lips—a piece I have cataloged a hundred times and never grown tired of seeing. Sometimes, I worry about the edges of the mosaic